R.E.M. pushes limits with Accelerate as record deal expires

I'm losing my religion over the record industry, and it seems like everybody …

It is not impossible for a forward-thinking rock band to do some creative marketing today—even if the band has a major-label record deal. Case in point: REM.

The grandfathers of alternative rock will have their new album, Accelerate, on store shelves in two weeks. But one week ahead of the physical release, Accelerate will be available for free streaming in its entirety through iLike, the online music service best known for its Facebook-based incarnation. You could stream lead single "Supernatural Superserious" from remhq.com since early February, and the band invited fans to mash up the video at will.

Sure, Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails may have gone a few steps further into the digital future, but they're free agents. REM still has to honor its existing record deal, as by my reckoning Accelerate is the fifth studio album released under the well-known five-album, $80 million contract the guys signed with Warner Music way back in 1997. "The support from Warner goes all the way to the top, to CEO Edgar Bronfman and the rest," band manager Bertis Downs told Ars in a phone interview this morning. Not every band enjoys that level of corporate backing, to be sure. Still, if R.E.M. can do it, then maybe Linkin Park or Matchbox 20 will be next. The dominoes start to fall, and we'll end up with a new template for how to manage a band and how to structure a record deal.

The avant-garde fun doesn't stop there, either. R.E.M. has licensed several songs (no, I don't know which ones) to video games after squeezing Orange Crush into Harmonix/Electronic Arts hit Rock Band. Bertis noted that some licenses never get used, but that there's a good chance that we might see more of Michael Stipe and the gang on our Xboxes and Wiis. Also, iTunes seems to be treating the band very well because they're set to play a set in the world's largest Apple store next Wednesday, two days after doing the Albert Hall. "We're playing a lot of smaller venues to support this album," said Downs, "but this is definitely the only computer store on our schedule."

All of this speaks volumes about Warner's willingness to embrace the new realities of the entertainment industry. It's impossible to tell how much of this freedoms comes from R.E.M.'s Hall of Fame-worthy star power, how the impending contract negotiations factor in, and how open-minded the label's top brass would be without those factors. But it's a start. Would R.E.M. walk in Radiohead's footprints and go truly indie? Bertis simply said that the band is looking at all its options, and that the opportunities to make interesting moves are so plentiful that they have to say "no" to most of them. In other words, wait and see. Whatever happens, R.E.M. will make news—and waves.